Someone please change mysqlconf.com redirection

MySQLConf.com uses a non-optimal temporary 302 redirect to the MySQL conference website.

This is very bad for mysqlconf.com domain name and equally bad for people who link to http://mysqlconf.com (instead of linking to en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/) as their links then DON'T BENEFIT the conference site and from Google's point of view they are linking to a page that engages in temporary redirect. The result is unless you link directly to an oreilly.com page for your conference links, your votes/links don't get passed on to the conference site.

A 302 redirect is considered bad from search engine's point of view due to its temporary nature.

So please folks, change the redirection to 301 or I will have to go back and change my links to be "rel='nofollow'" links.

Currently, the site gives:

wget mysqlconf.com
--14:27:44--  http://mysqlconf.com/
           => `index.html.2'
Resolving mysqlconf.com... 209.204.146.28
Connecting to mysqlconf.com|209.204.146.28|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/ [following]
--14:27:44--  http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/
           => `index.html.2'
Resolving en.oreilly.com... 208.201.239.26
Connecting to en.oreilly.com|208.201.239.26|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Moved Temporarily
Location: http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/public/content/home [following]
--14:27:44--  http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/public/content/home
           => `home'
Reusing existing connection to en.oreilly.com:80.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 16,852 [text/html]

100%[==========================================>] 16,852        45.68K/s             

14:27:45 (45.63 KB/s) - `home' saved [16852/16852]

What it should give:

wget fotolog.net  
--14:33:02--  http://fotolog.net/
           => `index.html.2'
Resolving fotolog.net... 65.118.195.131
Connecting to fotolog.net|65.118.195.131|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: http://www.fotolog.com/ [following]
--14:33:03--  http://www.fotolog.com/
           => `index.html.2'
Resolving www.fotolog.com... 64.111.215.105, 64.111.215.120
Connecting to www.fotolog.com|64.111.215.105|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 24,585 [text/html]

100%[==========================================>] 24,585        --.--K/s             

14:33:03 (191.15 KB/s) - `index.html.2' saved [24585/24585]

It doesn't just ends here. MySQL is also destroying its mysqluc.com domain in a bad manner. Look at the scary number of 302 redirects here:

wget mysqluc.com
--14:35:29--  http://mysqluc.com/
           => `index.html.3'
Resolving mysqluc.com... 209.204.146.28
Connecting to mysqluc.com|209.204.146.28|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: http://www.mysqlconf.com/ [following]
--14:35:30--  http://www.mysqlconf.com/
           => `index.html.3'
Resolving www.mysqlconf.com... 209.204.146.28
Connecting to www.mysqlconf.com|209.204.146.28|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/ [following]
--14:35:30--  http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/
           => `index.html.3'
Resolving en.oreilly.com... 208.201.239.26
Connecting to en.oreilly.com|208.201.239.26|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Moved Temporarily
Location: http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/public/content/home [following]
--14:35:31--  http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/public/content/home
           => `home.1'
Reusing existing connection to en.oreilly.com:80.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 16,852 [text/html]

100%[==========================================>] 16,852        41.99K/s             

14:35:31 (41.95 KB/s) - `home.1' saved [16852/16852]

Now I can just hope that someone actually takes action. It's small changes like this that make you get the most out of your domain or waste all the efforts you previously did in making your sites rank high.

For instance, just think how many links people created to mysqluc.com when MySQL conference was known as MySQL Users Conference. Just because MySQL used an insensible 302 redirect, all the efforts of community in linking to that domain went down the drain. The reason being that Google neither transfers the rank with 302 redirect, nor it consolidates the incoming votes/links from old domains to new domains.

Update: Why I keep talking about this: With Google's Bourbon update, I lost a very well performing site that I had worked on for many years. My investigations all pointed to using 302 redirect instead of 301 redirect. Basically, my site was wrongfully classified by Google as engaging in sneaking redirects. The site never rebounded. It was listed in Google news and was doing millions of page views a month. It had proper licensing from all content and news providers. 'Not knowing' didn't set me free in Google's court. By all means, it was a legitimate, high quality content provider site. Although this may never happen to you, Google still considers 302 a very bad form of redirecting and whenever possible it should be avoided.

re: mysql.com and mysql-press.com in Google

So I don't know who's in charge for this at MySQL so I thought I would just gain their attention by posting here. In addition, I hope this can help others in similar need/situation of serving content on multiple domains.

Basically MySQL serves content on both mysql.com and mysql-press.com which is a NO NO from the point of view of major search engines, most notably Google. Both domains go to the same IP (at least when I checked). This can potentially trigger duplicate content penalty and may even be hurting MySQL's ranking in SERPs (Search engine result pages).

Google seems to be already aware of the other domain.

Right way to serve content over multiple domains?
The ideal way to deal with serving content over multiple domains is to use a 301 Permanent Redirect from one domain to another. So when users go to mysql-press.com a 301 redirect should take them to mysql.com.

Don't dilute your PageRank
One more thing, by serving same content on multiple domains, you are diluting your PageRank. Using 301 redirect consolidates both your PageRank and potentially valuable incoming links.

BTW, This advice is not just for mysql.com. If you are serving content over multiple domains, then it can trigger Google's famous duplicate content penalty. The penalty is severe specially if you serve Google's contextual advertising on all those domains as that can potentially get your site wrongfully classified as a MFA or "Made for Adsense" site.

One quick note: there is an exception to this where if your last 2 subnets of IP address for both domains are different then there seems to be a lesser chance of penalty associated with duplicated content. At least, this was true until not so long ago.